"dog whistles"

[Dan Goncharoff]

To me, in America any stereotyping is seen as negative. (In Europe,
stereotyping is seen as a shorthand for understanding the differences
between cultures, and is not necessarily negative.)

DanG


On Fri, Apr 4, 2014 at 9:44 AM, Joel S. Berson <Berson at att.net> wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET>
> Subject:      Re: "dog whistles"
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> At 4/4/2014 07:42 AM, Amy West wrote:
> >On 4/4/14, 12:00 AM, Automatic digest processor wrote:
> >>I like the description the philosopher John Holbo at Crooked Timber
> >>has used, "impolite fictions," but that doesn't get at the semantic
> >>process here, which it seems to me to involve referring to X via
> >>one of its stereotypical properties (as, e.g, "inner city," "food
> >>stamp users") with the intention of evoking but not actually
> >>denoting it. (Or maybe I should make that, "referring to X by
> >>naming something to which X stereotypcially applies -- e.g., food
> >>stamp users are stereotypically black.) But what should it be called?
> >>
> >>Geoff
> >It seems like a "stereotyped metonymy" to me, where a stereotyped
> >quality is used to stand for the whole stereotype. Or a "false metonymy"
> >to be more explicit.
> >
> >---Amy West
>
> Isn't metonymy already a stereotype, by choosing one characteristic
> to be a "type" (as they used to say) of the whole?  Some adjective
> needs to be added that expresses the "impolite" (derogatory, hostile)
> aspect of the "dog whistles".
>
> Joel
>
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